The resort meeting rooms look to have the better layout as you have 6 rooms, 4 of which can be combined into 2 larger rooms or one big room if needed. It's also in the hotel, making getting back to your room to change costumes or take a quick break easier.

The wintergreen conference rooms have more space overall, but I'm not sure if the layout is better or worse. It's also 2.5 miles away from the hotel, making the only place to change the bathrooms.

Which would make the better venue? Is there any other points I should consider between the two locations?

1. Do you need a room block? I know most conventions have one, but having the attendees buy their own rooms (no group rate) seems like an easy way to save majorly on costs. Would this be frowned upon?

If your con is in a hotel, you should definitely get a room block. You'll get a much lower facility rental cost by making a commitment to the hotel that you'll fill a certain number of rooms.

If you're looking to book a hotel for your event, I HIGHLY recommend getting in touch with Experian. They specialize in booking hotels for events. Since they book so many across the country, they can get discounts you probably couldn't get on your own. It doesn't cost anything for you to use their service (and won't cost more for your attendees) since they make money off the sales commission from the hotel for bringing your event to them.

If you're interested, I can send you a private message with the phone number and/or e-mail address of my contact at Experian. He has worked with anime and fan conventions before.

The resort meeting rooms look to have the better layout as you have 6 rooms, 4 of which can be combined into 2 larger rooms or one big room if needed. It's also in the hotel, making getting back to your room to change costumes or take a quick break easier.

The wintergreen conference rooms have more space overall, but I'm not sure if the layout is better or worse. It's also 2.5 miles away from the hotel, making the only place to change the bathrooms.

Which would make the better venue? Is there any other points I should consider between the two locations?

The Wintergreen seemed less appealing to me since one "room" appears to actually be open space. It's tough to know what it's really like without seeing it.

...but when you said it's 2.5 miles from the hotel, that seems like a dealbreaker. If this is a multi-day event and you actually want people to stay overnight, you NEED to be at or near the hotel. If they have to drive 2.5 miles, they might as well drive from home.

Thanks for the response. Do you know if Experian has a website? I tried googling it but the results that came up were mostly about checking your credit score, so I don't think I'm on the right path. Your PM offer is quite generous, but I think I should pass as I'm nowhere near being able to put this together within the next year or two at this point, so I don't want to bother them until I have more things together on my end. I may take it up in the future though.

As for the two locations I was just concerned the resort might not be big enough as the wintergreen looked like it could accommodate three times the number the people. The resort room A is the same size as the wintergreen's dance floor, which makes for a good visual comparison. I do understand how not having accommodations within walking distance is likely to be a major turn off though, so I think I will stick with the resort location for now.

Being as the resort location is a bit more high end than your typical hotel (spa, golf, etc.) is there a particular way to approach them or phrase things that's more likely to make them open to the idea of allowing a large group of people in costumes? I know the location has done weddings, banquets, and conferences before but as they haven't done anything similar to an anime convention I'm not sure how well they'd take the proposal.

Edited by Chaigirl on 02-23-16 10:26 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

You may want to consider a smaller one-day con in a community center. Animethon, which has been around for 22 or 23 years, started as a single day - it has since grown to over 9000 patrons and two events a year, but it would not have gotten far at all if they tried to aim too high to begin with.

There's always so much to learn and do and it's a giant learning curve, so start small. Hotels require deposits usually, and will require a good sized attendance to ensure it's profitable enough to cover costs, never mind make any money. Community centres can be rented for cheaper, and give you a good idea of what to do for next year.

If you'd like more help, please feel free to reach out to me at my email, albertacons(at)gmail.com, or here. Sorry for the late reply, also.

Edited by AlbertaCons on 05-20-16 04:11 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.